Using a wireless hand-held device, such as a tablet, to remotely play an otherwise conventional gaming machine in a casino is prior art. The gaming machine, for security and central monitoring/accounting purposes, performs all the processing to deduct a bet from the remote player's stored bank of credits, randomly select a game outcome, determine the award to be paid to the player, and credit the player's bank of credits. The information processed by the gaming machine is wirelessly communicated to the tablet, and the predetermined outcome is displayed to the player (such as by displaying stopped reels), so the tablet's function is basically as a user interface.
The tablet displays on its screen essentially what the player would see if the player was at the gaming machine, but the gaming machine makes all the game decisions. Virtually all player inputs are performed via the tablet's touch screen.
In some prior art systems, when the tablet is in use, another player cannot use the gaming machine. In other prior art systems, one player may play the gaming machine using the tablet, and another player may simultaneously and independently play the gaming machine in the conventional way.
One type of tablet is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,846,238 to Wells, incorporated herein by reference.
Since the player may walk around the casino with the tablet and be distracted, various issues arise. Some of these issues include actions to be taken in the event the communications link is broken during a game and actions to be taken if a maximum time between games is exceeded. The link can be broken by the player moving beyond the reception range, moving beyond an allowable range, interference, battery failure, or equipment malfunction.
In the Wells patent (column 20, lines 29-47), for example, the gaming machine internally stores video frames of the game outcome in the event there is a communications link failure during the game, since the tablet could not display the outcome of the game and the outcome needs to be later verified. In case of such a link failure, it is very important to eventually prove to the player the actual outcome of the game. In the Wells patent, if the communications link is broken between the time the player initiated the rotation of the reels and the time that the outcome should have been communicated to the tablet to stop the reels, the game displayed on the tablet stops, and the player does not see the outcome. The game is thus terminated. The player becomes confused and agitated by the failure of the system. If the communications link was broken due to the player walking out the reception area, the player must determine this herself and walk back toward the gaming machine console. The tablet must then reestablish communications with the gaming machine. For the player to then determine the outcome of the game, the player must somehow view the stored video frames at the gaming machine. Wells describes the game being “terminated” once the communications link becomes inactive (see column 27, lines 1-2; column 29, lines 35-36; column 31, lines 19-20; column 32, lines 44-47; and column 34, lines 1-3). Such termination of the game prior to the player seeing the result of the game is a significant drawback of the Wells tablet.
Losing the communications link between games, rather than during a game, is much less frustrating, and reestablishing the communications link does not require any verification of a game's outcome.
Accordingly, what is needed is an improved technique for dealing with a communications link being broken in the middle of a game.
Further, in the Wells patent, there is no provision for allowing the player to temporarily suspend play without the system automatically terminating the playing session due to the period between games exceeding an allowable limit. Therefore, in the prior art tablet systems, the player cannot pause play for a legitimate reason and will lose rights to the gaming machine to another player.
Accordingly, what is also needed is a technique to allow the player to pause play on the tablet without the playing session being automatically terminated due to the period between games exceeding an allowable limit.
Another disadvantage of the Wells tablet is that it is customized for use as a gaming tablet to be used in conjunction with the licensed gaming machine (see column 12, lines 11-21). In one embodiment, the Wells tablet is a modified version of a commercially available tablet. This adds cost to the system since the casino must provide the tablets, and the players will initially be unfamiliar with the operation of the tablet, inhibiting wide spread acceptance of the system.
Accordingly, what is also needed is a mobile gaming device, such as a tablet, that is an off-the-shelf commercially available device, running a suitable application, that may be personally owned by the players and which communicates with licensed gaming machines located in the same jurisdiction in which the mobile gaming device is located.
It is known to access a gaming site via the internet using any suitable computing device, but such an internet connection only connects the computing device to a server running a gaming program, typically located outside of the United States. The server is not a licensed gaming machine in the jurisdiction in which the computing device is located. Therefore, operating the computing device to carry out the game may be illegal in the jurisdiction in which it is operated. Additionally, even operating such an internet-connected computing device in a jurisdiction that allows gaming does not typically authorize the player to operate the computing device for gaming purposes since the operation is not performed in an authorized venue.
Another disadvantage of the prior art tablets is that there is no provision to remotely select another gaming machine and automatically set up the communications link to the new machine. The remote player has no way of knowing which other games or other gaming machines are available for play. A related disadvantage is that the prior art tablets do not allow the player to use the tablet for different gaming machines/servers in different gaming venues.
Another disadvantage of prior art tablets is that, if the player does not have a central account, cashing out is not convenient since the player must either go to the gaming machine to receive a printed ticket or somehow identify the game on a separate printer terminal, such as by using a keypad.
Gaming machines and tablets may incorporate 3D image viewing capability, such as by having a lenticular lens over the screen to direct two interlaced stereoscopic images to the player's respective left and right eyes. A disadvantage of the prior art gaming tablets is that there is no provision for converting the gaming machine's 3D format of the original stereoscopic image to the tablet's particular 3D or 2D format. If the tablet does not have 3D capability, the original stereoscopic images cannot be displayed on the tablet's screen without appearing blurry. Further, with a gaming machine, the 3D image is tuned for a particular viewing distance, while the viewing distance for the tablet may be different, typically closer since the screen is much smaller. There is no provision in the prior art for allowing the remote player to adjust the 3D viewing distance (or image depth).
Another disadvantage of prior art gaming tablets is that there is no forced prevention of the player initiating a game when the battery power runs low. Therefore, an incomplete game may result if the battery power runs out during a game.